...building a new society within the shell of the old one.

January 06, 2007

I was writing a letter yesterday to a friend; you know
what I mean – paper and that thing that makes marks? – when I realised just how
unusual that has become. Apart from a few elderly relatives, almost everyone I know, with whom I would
have been exchanging letters 20 years ago now uses
e-mail almost exclusively.

Thinking about it further I
realised that I also use e-mail in circumstances where once I would have
phoned. I don’t mean I use it as a substitute, just that in many cases, you
know you only want to confirm something or ask a question that cannot be
answered immediately anyway so an e-mail is both simpler and provides a record.

I don’t know what happens for
those of you who are still wage-slaves, but up to about five years ago there
were still people around who wrote paper memos, even though internal e-mail was
ubiquitous, who spent days trying to call someone rather than knocking off a
quick e-mail query and, daftest of all, who got someone to print out all their
e-mails so that they could read them. These Luddites objected very often to
receiving e-mails and when they did often failed to read them. Of course people
like that also often failed to act on phone calls or memos, so making it even
more likely that the rest of us would create records of what we had said in the
form of email and so it went on…Do such people still exist? I hope not, but I
suspect I’m hoping in vain.

January 04, 2007

Clarity in shared procedural rules is highly desirable. But if we want to live in a world where the goals and threat aren't well defined, where we have a choice, and where how we live is not vulnerable to simple shocks from unexpected angles, then universal order and simplicity are bad. Conflict and competition, difference and redundancy are good. The more disorder, uneveness, and complexity our society has, the richer our lives, and the better equipped we are collectively to meet disaster by routing around damage.

January 02, 2007

The State, in every civilized country, is far more active
now than at any former time; in Russia, Germany, and Italy it interferes in
almost all human concerns. Since men love power, and since, on the average,
those who achieve power love it more than most, the men who control the State
may be expected, in normal circumstances, to desire an increase of its internal
activities just as much as an increase of its territory. Since there are solid
reasons for augmenting the functions of the State, there will be a
predisposition, on the part of ordinary citizens, in favour of acquiescing in
the wishes of the government in this respect. There is, however, a certain
desire for independence, which will, at some point, become strong enough to
prevent, at least temporarily, any further increase in the intensity of the
organisation. Consequently love of independence in the citizens and love of
power in the officials will, when organization reaches a certain intensity, be
in at least temporary equilibrium, so that if organization were increased love
of independence would become the stronger force, and if it were diminished
official love of power would be the stronger.

Love of independence is, in most
cases, not an abstract dislike of external interference, but aversion from some
one form of control which the government thinks desirable – prohibition,
conscription, religious conformity, or what not. Sometimes such sentiments can
be gradually overcome by propaganda and education, which can indefinitely
weaken the desire for personal independence. Many forces conspire to make for
uniformity in modern communities – schools, newspapers, cinema, radio, drill,
etc. Density of population has the same effect. The position of momentary
equilibrium between the sentiment of independence and the love of power tends,
therefore, under modern conditions, to shift further and further in the
direction of power, thus facilitating the creation and success of totalitarian
States. By education, love of independence can be weakened to an extent to which,
at present, no limits are known. How far the internal power of the State may be
gradually increased without provoking revolt it is impossible to say, but there
seems no reason to doubt that, given time, it can be increased far beyond the
point at present reached even in the most autocratic States.

From "Power" by Bertrand Russell,
written in 1938, (hence the reference to Italy) but uncannily relevant to the present day.